No. 46 Portrait of the infant Rostam shown to Sam

Zal
fell in love with Rudabeh, daughter of king Mehrab of Kabol. Sam was
opposed to a match at first, since Mehrab was a grandson of the
tyrannical king Zahhak, but he relented when astrologers told him
that a son born to the couple would be a mighty champion of Iran.
Assisted by the Simorgh, who was summoned by the burning of one of
her feathers, Rudabeh gave birth to a boy of prodigious size. They
named him Rostam and his image was sent to Sam. In the Shahnameh,
the image is a stuffed doll, but here the artist has interpreted it
as a painting on silk. The messenger or courtier who presents the
portrait to Sam has perhaps taken on some of the nervousness that the
artist himself may have felt in laying his work before his patron.
But Sam radiates satisfaction.

Together with Nos.
44,
45,
47,
48,
49,
50,
53,
54 and
55,
this illustration
belonged to a copy of the Shahnameh
made for Mohammad Juki b. Shah Rokh, brother of Ebrahim Soltan (the
patron of Nos.
33,
34,
35,
36,
38 and
39). Mohammad Juki died before
the manuscript was completed. In the early sixteenth century, it came
into the possession of a later Timurid ruler, Babur, who took it to
India when he founded the Mughal dynasty there.